Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Well, I guess that's it, folks. Summer is officially over. Labor Day is behind us, college football has started and there are no more long holiday weekends until Thanksgiving. Every year I find myself saying... where did the summer go? But this year.. while it did go fast... June and July somehow seem like eons ago.

Usually, I'm ready for summer to get the hell out of town. I mean... summers in Tennessee can be brutal. And this year was no exception... days after days of 90+ degree weather, some 100+ degree days. It was a sweat-fest out there. And I'm always looking forward to the cool, brisk days of fall with their bright blue skies and low humidity. (and football!!).

The only bad thing about fall? The clothes. I hate wearing jeans (because I can't find any that fit my body well) and I hate wearing closed toe shoes. Blah. Sure, I love looking at fall catalogs with their plaids and flannels and their tweeds and boots. But, unfortunately... it's not a look that I can very succesfully pull off. Oh well. Maybe this will be the year I find the one. The one pair of jeans that I can fall in love with. Fingers crossed.

Sept 24-26: Heading down to Auburn for the South Carolina vs. Auburn football game with friends
October 2: Stumpjump 50k
October 22-23: Bourbon Chase Relay
Nov 6-8: Chicago trip

Speaking of the Auburn/South Carolina football game... I made these peanut butter cookies and froze almost all the dough, to save for tailgating!

I can clearly remember the first time I ever made peanut butter cookies. You see... peanut butter cookies weren't really a standby in my house growing up. We had mostly chocolate chip cookies (in bar form), magic cookie bars, and grandma cookies (aka no bake cookies). I can't recall my mom ever making peanut butter cookies.

But one day when I was probably 13/14 I pulled down a little camel colored cookbook from the shelf and flipped through it. It was called something like... "recipes from the back of labels, jars, and cans." or something like that. I found a peanut butter cookie recipe and got to work.

The resulting cookies were crumbly and peanut buttery. They weren't chewy or moist, but they were full of peanut flavor and required a huge glass of milk to swallow. I made those cookies a few more times and now that I think about it, I need to copy that recipe from the book the next time I'm over at my parents house.

Since then, my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe is the one that is flourless. YUM. But, I'm an equal opportunity peanut butter cookie lover... I recently tried one of the Baked Peanut Butter Cookies and they were delicious!!! It seems just like chocolate chip cookies, there's no decisive peanut butter cookie recipe.. they're all good.

And these are good, too! Although, I do think I baked them a little long. With all the butter in the recipe, they stay pretty light in color and I kept expecting them to darken up a bit, so they got a little overcooked. But they were still pretty damn tasty. With all the other peanut butter cookie recipes out there, I'm not sure I'll be making these again... but it was fun to try a new recipe. And I'm sure once I pull these bad boys out in a couple of weeks and bake up a whole batch for some South Carolina Tailgating, I'll be shoveling them into my mouth and swallowing them down with loads of beer and thinking... DAMN these are some good cookies.

So, with that... bring on the fall! Bring on the weather, the changing leaves, the football, the tailgating and yes... the jeans. Ugh.

These cookies were easy to make. No weird ingredients, no chill time before baking. Just whip up a batch and bake them off.

I did add vanilla (because I'm a vanilla whore and add it to everything) and I left out the peanuts. A good simple, classic peanut butter cookie recipe. The flavor of peanut butter could be a bit more intense for my liking, but still a yummy recipe.

Of course, I never could get my crisscrosses to do right on the cookies. Ugh.